


Fancy Meeting You Here

by passing-fanciful (kageygirl)



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-17
Updated: 2014-09-17
Packaged: 2018-02-17 19:14:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,580
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2320373
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kageygirl/pseuds/passing-fanciful
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If they keep running into each other like this, people might talk.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fancy Meeting You Here

She's got her hand raised, trying to block the snow from her eyes (it's going fucking _sideways_ ) when an arm wraps around her waist and pulls her into an alley, a hand covering her mouth.

She recognizes the fingers resting over her lips before anything else, the barely-there touch even more singular than the rings. "Be still, Swan," he whispers, terse, in her ear, and she gives a short nod.

She relaxes back into him, and he moves his hand away, resting his palm over her collarbone. She turns her head just enough to catch him in the corner of her eye, and whispers back, "What the hell are you doing?"

He tugs her a little further back, away from the mouth of the alley, and it's sheltered enough to cut down on the wind. This time, his voice is even quieter, and he breathes across her ear, "There's far too many of them for a direct confrontation. We need to be more circumspect."

She shivers, not entirely from the cold, or even his words.

His hand is warm, his body warmer, and the way they're pressed together from the shoulders down feels way too good; they've lost out on a lot of personal time, lately. It's only when he sucks in a sharp breath that she realizes she's dropped her hand to his thigh.

_So not the time, Emma._

"Sorry," she whispers, and he gives her a shaky chuckle.

"On the contrary, I appreciate the way you think, love," he says, and presses a slow, suggestive kiss below her ear, his beard sending a frisson of heat across her skin.

They both freeze when they hear the grinding crunch of one of the ice constructs coming down the street, the very thing she'd been watching out for. Emma concentrates on cloaking them--she hasn't mastered it yet; what she can do is more like camouflage--but the ice constructs don't see that well, and it misses them, unmoving in the shadows.

When it moves off, she straightens, getting her head back in the game. "Is there a plan?"

"Robin's, actually," he says, and eases his arms away from her. She turns to look up at him, and sees him smiling (in the half-light, it's particularly predatory). "Dave said you might know it as a 'turkey shoot.'"

She smiles back at him. "Let's go hunting, then."

Just before they leave the alley, she catches his arm. He raises his eyebrows, and she stretches up to murmur, "To be continued."

"Aye," he says, and squeezes her hand, before they throw themselves back into the storm.

* * *

"This way," Killian says in a low voice, with a hand on the small of her back, and she gathers her skirts and ducks around the corner with him, trying not to look like they're doing _exactly_ what they're doing, which is playing high-stakes hide-and-go-seek with the castle guards.

It doesn't matter that none of this is real, because if they get caught, they will be really, _really_ dead.

They're getting close to the ballroom again, Emma can tell, the sonorous blend of music and conversation echoing down the hall. The ring on her finger pulses warm--Gold's early-warning system at work--and she holds out a hand to stop him.

The party sounds are eclipsed by the syncopated drumbeat of booted feet on flagstones coming from the cross-corridor. She's about to duck back the way they came, as casually as she can, when Killian draws her into an alcove, crowding her against the wall.

She can feel herself gaping up at him. "This isn't the time or place for this," she whispers harshly.

Killian cups her face, the serious look on his face at odds with his behavior. "It's exactly the time _and_ the place, love," he says softly, his gaze sharp-eyed and clear. "Trust me."

And she does.

So she lets him cradle her head, his breath painting across her lips as he leans in--

\--and stops.

She opens her eyes (hadn't meant to close them, actually) and stares at him. He's stepped in as close as he can (the size of her skirt is again ridiculous), his artificial hand around her waist, and he's just barely _not_ kissing her.

The ring on her finger is practically burning now, and that's when the black knights march down the hall behind him.

Gold had warned them that the spell that would take them into Regina's head would result in a weird mix of real events and imagination, and that the memory they were searching for would be defended somehow, Maleficent's curse keeping Regina herself from remembering what had been done to her. He hadn't been able to tell them more about what they would face, but it seemed pretty obvious to both of them that the black knights weren't there to have a good time, even without the ring to warn them.

She stares up at Killian, and he stares back at her. His eyes have gone dark, and when he licks his lip, she feels it in the change in his breath. Her own breathing picks up under the tension, and his eyes flick to her lips, his hand shifting in her hair. She hears the metallic ringing of weaponry behind him, and blocked from their sight by his body, she slides her hands under his fancy coat, feeling for the knife he's carrying for her (harder to conceal under a corset without puncturing a lung). 

But the last of the column passes behind Killian without incident. She hears one of them mutter to another, "At least _someone's_ getting some action tonight."

And then they're gone, the sound of their steps fading away.

She looks up at Killian, and he gives her a lopsided smile. "It's never a successful ball unless someone gets caught red-handed," he says, and eases his hand out of her hair, brushing a few loose strands back into place before stepping back. "I apologize for my presumptuousness."

She huffs out a laugh, and lets her hands wander just a little as she pulls them out from under his coat. "Apologize later for not following through," she says, and grins at him as she takes his hand and steps back into the hall.

* * *

She snags his elbow as he's going past, and spins him into the coat closet with a pirouette that she might be way too proud of (maybe she really _is_ a natural, after all), closing the door behind him before anyone notices and sends up the alarm. 

"Swan?" He sounds vaguely panicked, and his eyes are darting around to everything _but_ her. "What are you doing?"

"What I have to," she says, advancing on him until he's backed himself into a line of coat hangers. She slides her hands up his chest, smoothing down his lapels. "You clean up pretty well, there."

""Devilishly handsome' is always in fashion. But, love, this is going to cause terrible trouble, you know." He's got his eyes closed now, but he raises his hand to covers hers. It's trembling, just a little, and she feels a rush of fondness that surprises her, if only because she didn't think she could _get_ any more fond of him.

"Worse than we've been in before?" she asks, toying with his collar, rubbing her thumbs against his skin. She can see the muscle in his jaw working, and leans in to scrape her teeth gently over his neck.

He groans, a helpless sound, and she knows she almost has him. "I've been informed by several of your relatives and friends--possibly each and every one of them, at this point; it's as if they don't trust me--that seeing the bride before the wedding is bad luck."

"So don't look," she says, and buries her fingers in her hair. "But, god, Killian, the first time I kiss you today shouldn't be in front of everyone. I'm not sure I'll be able to stop."

That does it--he surges forward, blindly finding her mouth with a skill borne of long practice, kissing her as fiercely as if they've been separated for months, instead of a single day. She presses back, needing this, needing _him_ , just as much as he needs her.

When they finally part, she giggles at the wrinkles she's put in his dress shirt, and he smiles at the sound, eyes still closed. "You're, uh, you're gonna need to straighten up a little bit before you get in there."

"Whereas _I_ was polite enough not to muss your hair, darling." He trails his hand up her arm, over her shoulder, brushing the backs of his fingers under her chin. "I'm saving that _particular_ pleasure for this evening."

Oh god, she needs to get out of here, or she's going to jump him right now, ceremony be damned. She kisses him one last time, soft and brief, and then squeezes his hand. "I should go. Wait five minutes before following me."

He presses his lips to her knuckles and grins at her (she so wants to see his eyes right now, but if he can't see her at all, it seems only fair). "I'll wait three minutes and no more, love."

"Deal," she says, unable to suppress a giggle, and darts out into the hall after checking that the coast is clear.

(Ruby has to touch up her make-up, giving her a knowing look the _entire_ time and sighing in exasperation when Emma can't stop smiling.)


End file.
